


After The Last Laugh

by Toyu



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Inspired by Music, M/M, Pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 15:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7273036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toyu/pseuds/Toyu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hide's in the afterlife and Haise/Kaneki joins him soon after. Inspired by listening to Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge over Troubled Water" after reading the final chapters or so of 'The Last Laugh'. I should NOT have done that...</p>
            </blockquote>





	After The Last Laugh

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NotShortImFunsized](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotShortImFunsized/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Last Laugh](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6064591) by [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account). 



Hide sits there next to his grave, headphones in his ears playing a familiar American song that he had heard on the radio. It was a song by a duo named Simon and Garfunkel, and pretty much summed up his life and all of Kaneki’s, both before and after the raid on the Coffee shop.

When you're weary, feeling small.  
When tears are in your eyes, I'll dry them all...  
I'm on your side, oh, when times get rough...  
And friends just can't be found,

That was Kaneki’s childhood pretty much, and when Hide truly ponders it, it was also Kaneki after he became a half ghoul, a naive person shoved into a rough world without friends, only allies as the dork goes and fails to reply to his only friend’s constant texting and calls.

Like a bridge over troubled water,  
I will lay me down.

Hide had laid himself down for Kaneki, for the rest of humanity, for his squad, for his family, for his friends, for a better world that was forming all around him, without him. He chuckles at the irony that Kaneki had awakened at his death, not just before or during, but after, when Hide was not there to support him through the painful waves of water and tragedy that made up Kaneki’s life.

Like a bridge over troubled water,  
I will lay me down.

He knows his friend and lover will do something similar, after just watching him smoke in front of his grave. The water, although calmer and less rough against the support beams of the bridge that had been Hide’s friendship with Kaneki, was still rising, and Kaneki was just waiting on the edge, waiting to drown himself once more in tragedy.

When you're down and out...  
When you're on the street.  
When evening falls so hard,  
I will comfort you (ooo)

Hide had been Kaneki’s comfort, both when he was a human under the hands of his mother and the school bullies, when Kaneki had to go against Arima in the sewers and after that when Kaneki became Sasaki. Now that Hide was gone, the self-destructive lonely, oh so lonely bunny that had been and forever will be Kaneki Ken, his best friend, was throwing himself into the raids against Aogiri Tree. Hide knew it was a matter of time before he would join him, and had his suspicions confirmed when Kaneki went and talked with Amon, about _dying_ when the rescued kids were old enough to fend for themselves _. Kaneki, I did not take your part for you to rush towards death, stupid stupid stupid idiot._ Hide thinks to himself with a pessimistic frown as the next four lines play in his head.

I'll take your part, oh, when darkness comes.  
And pain is all around,  
Like a bridge over troubled water,  
I will lay me down.

Perhaps in another life, Hide would have died at Kaneki’s hands there in the sewers, perhaps Arima would have not shown any mercy towards Haise when he awakened as Kaneki Ken. Perhaps Kaneki would still dream of Hide, muttering “Hide… I’m so lonely without you…” in a tearstained sleep. In the end, Hide still took Kaneki’s part in a sense, because the idiot would have still found some way to fall, regardless if it was by a ghoul’s hand or one of the investigators, which meant Arima’s hand, as the reaper was the only one strong enough to do Kaneki in when he was at full power, the sewers had seen to that. Kaneki had tried to take the part some of his friends had taken, and had succeeded in taking their pain at the cost of his freedom and memories at the time. And now he was doing it again, just in a more time-full manner.

Like a bridge over troubled water,  
I will lay me down...

Hide watches on as Kaneki copies him, not for the first time, lying his life down in the line of duty against some rampant ghouls, shielding the Quinx squad and his two adoptive children by using his body when his quique would have sufficed just as well. Haise appears before him, tears streaming down his face with a pained broken smile as he repeats the words that he had been crying, then tearfully muttering, whispering, then silently mouthing in his sleep each night since Hide’s death. “Hide… I’m so lonely without you…”  Hide puts the crying Kaneki into a choke hold, because the idiot deserved it for being no different than he had been before falling to Arima.

Sail on silver girl...  
Sail on by.  
Your time has come to shine,  
All your dreams are on their way...

 _Yes_ , Hide muses, if he was the Papa in the family relationship, Haise and Kaneki had been the girl and eventual wife, notwithstanding Hasie’s perfect crossdressing skills. In the past Hide had followed Kaneki into the troubled waters of the sewers, and now Kaneki had followed him into death’s strangely warm embrace. Or maybe it was because Hide’s arms shifted from a choked hold on his lover’s neck and were now wrapped around his waist…

See how they shine,  
Oh, if you need a friend.

“This...” Hide mutters as he tightens his grip on Kaneki, “is your punishment.”

A soft choked bubble of laughter comes from Sasaki, and then he leans back into Hide’s embrace.

I'm sailing right behind,  
Like a bridge over troubled water,  
I will ease your mind...

“I don’t mind… if this ‘punishment’ lasts forever…” Haise mummers in reply, his spiritual body relaxing further as a warm light engulfs them both, to which Hide says with a smile  “Yeah… Let’s do this forever… together… my soft, emotional rabbit wife…”

Hide smiles, knowing fully well that he was doing what he was meant to do all along, as the final two lines of the song play out in his mind. Perhaps the lines were also playing in Sasaki’s too, as the dork had gone and listened to Hide’s Mp3 player that Hide had secretly hidden in Haise’s underwear drawer.

Like a bridge over troubled water...  
I will ease your mind.

 A trickle of true laughter could be heard from both of them as the pair of friends, former-enemies, lovers and half-ghouls faded into the light, and then they were gone.


End file.
